It takes the entire family, including their son and grandchildren, a weekend to install the Christmas display, which also includes a full-size nativity scene, and hang the lights at the Shaners’ two-story home at Bruce and Henry streets.

“We sit upstairs at night and we just watch the cars,” Pam Shaner said. “We’re amazed at the number of cars. There are quite a few that come by.”

The lights are turned on 4 to 10 p.m. each night Thanksgiving to New Year’s weekend, and Shaner says they don’t pay any mind to the electric bill. They spread the cost over the year.

The couple stores the 10 boxes of items, and more than 10,000 lights, in their basement, garage and a couple of sheds on their property.

Some 145 miles away in Milan, Justin Blaine, at age 14, adopted the same enthusiasm for Christmas light displays as the Shaners’ son. He would spend his own money as a teenager on holiday light displays while shopping after the holidays with his mother.

“It has always been a passion of mine,” says Blaine, now grown up with a family of his own. “I’ve just always gotten a kick out of it.

“Jesus is the reason for the season — the lights celebrate his birth — and that’s what I strive for.”

And strive Blaine does, with every ounce of passion he possesses. In fact, he has a Facebook page called Blaine’s Light Show with 155 fans devoted to it. Blaine also has programmed his lights to music and he has created a virtual Santa Claus that appears — to people driving by and looking at his window — to be walking around his home.

Blaine’s holiday light display at 448 Argyle Crescent St. includes more than 10,000 lights synchronized to religious music, which passersby can listen to on FM Channel 88.5. He said one two-minute song can take him up to 12 hours to synchronize, as he’s not a technology guru.

“I bought a computer program and saw these videos on YouTube, and thought, ‘I want to do that,’” he said of learning to synchronize the music himself.

It takes Blaine two weeks to install it and he usually starts in early November. What motivates him to continue is the response he has received from neighbors and others in the tiny community located just south of Ann Arbor.

“All last year, I said, ‘I am not doing it. I am not doing it.’ But the closer it got to Christmas, I thought, ‘There is that one kid counting on my lights.’”

And beyond maybe just that “one kid” who is looking forward to Blaine’s light display is the group Aid in Milan, which is counting on him, too. Blaine has asked visitors to donate food items to stock the help agency’s shelves at the holidays.

Blaine said he came up with the idea three years ago “just to give back to the community.”

“You see so many cars going by the house (looking at the light dis-play) and I thought it would be a good idea.

“While you’re eating your dinner, you think, ‘What if I didn’t have this?’ I want everyone to have a meal. That’s kind of why I started doing it.”

Seventy-five miles from Blaine in Milan and 153 miles from the Shaners in Mount Pleasant, Matt Pach is rocking his own holiday light display, the outcome of a passion also ignited when he was a youth.

At his 1,300-square-foot ranch-style home in Chesterfield Township, Pach displays up to 10,000 lights, a “Merry Christmas” sign, three-foot-tall white twinkling snowflake, giant wreath, plastic Santa with reindeer and Christmas tree light show display synchronized to the beat of music.

It takes him about five days to install it, starting the week after Halloween and then it comes down Jan. 2 or so.

Pach’s favorite feature of his display — driven by his love of aviation — is Santa’s runway and Santa’s toy plane.

“The runway is 16-feet long and runs across the middle of our yard,” he said in an email. “Santa’s toy plane is custom-built by a family friend, and features a moving propeller, puppy pilot and white lights. It really is a one-of-a-kind Christmas decoration.”

Like the Shaners, he has a nativity scene on display, as well, that is lit up. He also has two snow globes and what Pach describes as a “real-life animated Santa.”

“And, if he is in the right mood, he will talk or sing to you,” Pach said of Santa.

Six years ago, Pach’s holiday light display gained popularity when it was recognized by Chesterfield Township with an award.

“After that, it obviously had to get bigger … and it exploded from there,” he said.

An electrician by trade, Pach said his career has aided his “sickness” for Christmas light displays, and his children, 4-year-old Paige and 2-year-old Ryan, have encouraged it, as well.

“Sharing the lights and the items with my kids makes it so much better. They get so excited when I start pulling it all out (to put up). It’s amazing to share it with them,” he said.

When it’s over and the electric bill comes, costing up to four times more than usual, Pach says it doesn’t faze him.